NEWS AND RESOURCES

A Few Takeaways from Gartner’s “Cloud Myths” Webinar

Ronda Peoples / March 3, 2015

I was fortunate this morning to catch Gartner’s live webinar entitled “The Top 10 Cloud Myths,” hosted by David Mitchell Smith, VP and Gartner Fellow in Gartner Research. Smith identified some of the common myths surrounding cloud computing and used those items as a springboard to discuss a variety of relevant and timely cloud topics. The webinar, which would be a useful tool for any IT professional or other manager considering adoption – or expansion – of a cloud environment, is available for replay. Below are a few of the highlights I took from the presentation.

  • Cost savings, while likely, is not a guarantee and is not the best reason to make a move to the cloud. In fact, a Gartner poll suggests that saving money is the second most-cited factor influencing cloud adoption (14%). Agility is the number one reason consumers are moving to the cloud (50%).
  • Despite ample evidence to the contrary, many consumers continue to believe the myth that a cloud environment is less secure than an on-prem environment. It is not. In fact, if you look at the broader concept of “risk management” versus just “security,” certain cloud providers can help consumers achieve regulatory compliance and other goals that otherwise might not be attainable.
  • Despite the rigorous security features employed by large cloud providers, a consumer cannot be truly secure without taking responsibility for some of their own security protocols and best practices. It is a shared responsibility model that offers the best protection.
  • Many companies believe the myth that a move to the cloud is an all-or-nothing proposition. That is not the case. In fact, in most situations, companies adopt the cloud in stages, adding more and more cloud solutions to their environment over time as resources become available.
  • The cloud can be a good place for all your resources, even for your mission-critical workloads. Just look at Netflix, which runs entirely on Amazon Web Services (AWS).
  • Data center outsourcing is NOT a cloud strategy. The agility and performance capabilities of a true cloud are in a different league from the old data center IT model.
  • Despite much propaganda to the contrary, simple virtualization does not give you a cloud solution. Virtual machines can be a part of an overall cloud strategy, but VMs are a technology. Cloud computing is a service. Mere virtualization is insufficient to offer the breadth of solutions you can get from a cloud environment.
  • For now, most companies need to evolve to a hybrid cloud solution, with some resources operating in the cloud and other resources operating in more traditional environments. As advances occur in software and other offerings, a move toward a total cloud solution is more likely.

Smith summed up the presentation by pointing out that, in reality, there are two primary goals motivating consumers to move a cloud environment – cost and capability. It is the latter goal – the simple ability for a company to do things it could not do before – that ultimately will sustain the cloud’s momentum and popularity.

Blue Sentry is an advanced-tier Amazon Web Services (AWS) consulting partner specializing in application and data migrations, expert managed services and virtual desktops. Blue Sentry serves clients globally, with operations in North Carolina and South Carolina.